Decriminalization is not enough

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli

Marijuana prohibition is a policy choice, not a fact of life. With a devastating economic downturn and increasing violence associated with illicit drug syndicates, that choice makes sense to fewer people than ever. Forty years after the war on drugs started, an October Gallup poll found for the first time that 50 percent of Americans support making marijuana legal. The poll indicated that only 46 percent oppose ending marijuana prohibition.

No other law is enforced so harshly and pervasively yet deemed unnecessary by so many Americans. Almost half of U.S. adults admit in government surveys to having tried marijuana at least once. Politicians on the campaign trail readily admit to being members of that group. And yet over 800,000 people are arrested every year for violating marijuana laws – the vast majority for personal possession – at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars. In every state, people of color are disproportionately arrested for marijuana offenses.

Fourteen states, including California, have tried to address the hypocrisy and waste of marijuana prohibition by lowering criminal penalties. In January, California reduced the penalty for possession of under an ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction, a finable offense that does not carry a penalty of incarceration. Even with this positive change, however, marijuana laws will continue to soak up local law enforcement time (to issue infractions) and waste court and jail resources (to prosecute and incarcerate those who do not or cannot pay their fines) – and will probably continue to have a disproportionate impact on people of color.

Decriminalization also fails to address the huge underground supply chain for marijuana. The value of marijuana produced in the U.S. to meet domestic demand is estimated to be over $35 billion, making it the nation’s largest cash crop. This immense market is completely untaxed, a source of revenue that federal and state governments can ill afford to neglect.

Prohibition – even where possession is decriminalized – ensures that this vast market enriches criminal organizations and contributes to violence, crime and corruption on a massive scale. Virtually all “marijuana-related violence” is a direct result of prohibition, which keeps responsible, regulated businesses out of the market. Since illegal businesses have no legitimate means to settle disputes, violence inevitably results – just as it did during alcohol Prohibition.

Gallup has been asking Americans since 1970, “Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?” Forty years ago, support registered at 12 percent, rose to 28 percent by the late 1970s, dipped slightly during the 1980s, and then rose gradually to 36 percent in 2005. In the past six years, however, support has jumped dramatically, with important implications for state and national marijuana policy. Majorities of men, liberals, 18-29 year-olds, moderates, independents, Democrats, 30-49 year-olds, and voters in Western, Midwestern and Eastern states now support legalizing cannabis.

Proposition 19 was a turning point for the national debate. Last November, more than 4.6 million Californians (46.5 percent of those at the polls) voted to end marijuana prohibition and replace it with sensible regulations for adult marijuana consumption, sales, and cultivation. That campaign moved marijuana legalization into the mainstream of U.S. politics, forged an unprecedented model reform coalition, and made ending marijuana prohibition in California a matter of when and how.

For an increasingly wide range of groups – including the California branch of the NAACP, the California affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Young Democrats, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the California Council of Churches, several big labor unions and most recently the California Medical Association – the question is not whether marijuana prohibition should end, but what marijuana regulation should look like.